Saturday, September 24, 2011

A final table that featured two satellite qualifiers, a WSOP bracelet holder, and a trio of Borgata regulars comes down to the J♠ as it's Bobby's World for the WPT Borgata Poker Open Championship.

Bahbak 'Bobby' Oboodi (Morris Plains, NJ) is the last man standing in a record field of 1,313 entries as he takes down the $922,441 first place prize. "I'm just numb, the excitement hasn't hit me yet," said the 24 year old poker pro moments after winning the title.

"I feel like everyone else is more excited than I am, but I'm sure it's going to hit me later tonight when I realize I just won this tournament and nearly a million dollars."

Oboodi beat Jin Hwang (Gambrills, MD), a man who seriously doubted that he would make the final table and checked out of his hotel room on Day 4 before play resumed with 27 players.

"I'm so proud of myself, I think I did my best," said Hwang, who had no major cashes on his tournament resume, but pocketed $554,303 as runner-up. "I'm completely satisfied and happy with my play and ready to go on to the next tournament."

Heads up play began with each player holding at least 40 big blinds, but lasted only 18 hands. The J♠ was the key card that propelled Oboodi to victory on the final two hands.

On the penultimate hand, Oboodi hit a pair of jacks on the turn as his AJ bested Hwang's AQ to win a 10 million chip pot and extended his lead. The final blow comes when the one eyed jack hit the turn again giving Oboodi a flush and Hwang two pairs.

Oboodi had to sweat the river, but when Hwang missed his outs for a full house, the Borgata regular wins the championship with a queen high flush.

"My strategy for heads up was to small ball it. I didn't want to get into any big hands where I'm going to be put in marginal situations," he said while being congratulated from his rowdy rooting section, the Morris County Crew (MCC). "I was fortunate enough to make the flush against top pair on the last hand and it held up and here we are, champion."

Hwang, who didn't have any regrets on how he played the final two hands said, "I didn't think there was anyway he had a flush there," and that he expected Oboodi would have raised Hwang's flop bet with a flush draw. "He played it perfectly."

Hwang, the 56 year old self-employed financial agent, was happy to still be playing for a six figure cash as he was 27th out of 27 returning players on the final three tables with just 12 big blinds. But after surviving multiple all-in pots, he got a huge lift with quad jacks after his pocket hooks were dominated by the pocket queens of Will "The Thrill" Failla.

"That was the biggest turning point," said Hwang, who entered this tournament on a $400 satellite, "and that's when I thought I could do it. I was feeling comfortable and it was like someone was leading me to the final table."

When the final table of six resumed under the glare of the tv lights on Day 5, Hwang was once again the short stack with still only one dozen big blinds. But one by one, he moved up the pay scale.

The first to go was Ricky Hale (Cornwall, England), the other short stack, who turned a $100 satellite into $186,585 for his 6th place finish.

Darren Elias (Montclair, NJ), one of the three New Jersey players at the table, was 5th ($230,610) when his pocket jacks ran into Oboodi's pocket kings. The hand took Oboodi's stack to nearly 19 million and caused problems for Fred Goldberg (Hollywood, FL).

"I was sitting on Fred's left and he was put in a difficult spot being on my right because we were both chip leaders heading into the day," said Oboodi. "You really don't want to play too big of a hand out of position against the second chip leader. He was really unlucky with his seat because if he was on my left I'm sure I would have had just as difficult of a time."

Goldberg, a WSOP bracelet holder and the 10th place finisher in the 2006 Main Event, was frustrated throughout the day and finished 4th ($280,925) when he was out kicked by Oboodi on Goldberg's final hand.

Oboodi had more than half the chips in play while three-handed, as Hwang was second in chips and Daniel Buzgon (Marlton, NJ), the third local player, was third.

Hwang eventually knocked out Buzgon in third place ($335,433), setting up heads-up play, as the final two outlasted a world class field.

The tournament featured big names, bracelet holders and WPT champions. In addition to Failla (11th/$50,315), who was bidding to be the first back-to-back winner on tour and calls Borgata his "home" casino, notables who cashed in the $4,332,900 total buy-in included:

In the end, Borgata is Bobby's World and with his new found wealth his goals are to play more poker and to start a business. "Poker is great, but I want to have some steady income that's not related to poker," he said while trying to figure out where he'll display the championship trophy.

The WPT Borgata Poker Open Championship Event went on to break its own attendance record from the previous year. An astounding 1,313 players participated in the Championship event - including many of those who used the new Double Play option to take another shot on Day 1B after busting Day 1A.

Several PPI players made deep runs in the Championship, which featured a 1st place prize of more than $900k, including the WPT Legends of Poker Champion Will "The Thrill " Failla who pulled off an astounding 11th place finish to follow up his previous victory. Other PPI notable finishes in the Championship were: Jack Schanbacher (16th place), Ryan Eriquezzo (22nd place), and John Racener (35th place).

The PPI Leaderboard Champion was James Boyle for a 2nd year in a row. The staff and players of Poker Players International (www.ppipoker.com) would like to congratulate Borgata for a wonderful series of events, and we would also like to thank the Borgata for its continued support of PPI.

See everyone at the Borgata Fall Open (November 9-23)!Eric Siegel - Co-Founder PPI, Director of Marketing

While the Championship was going on in The Event Center, Event 24 was running in Borgata Poker Room. After 15 hours of play, Dan Dizenzo (Vernon, NJ) takes down the deep stack and takes home a whopping $20,875.

Dan outlasted 421 other players all vying for a piece of the $96,830 Total Buy-In. Keep in mind this was a re-entry so many players took advantage. Top 45 made the money.

After dinner, James Sansone (Las Vegas, NV) was the chip leader with over 300,000. Borgata regular Leanne Rosenblatt was among the chip leaders all day. She finished in 9th place for $1,633.

Your last woman standing was Josephine Finelli who finished in 6th place for $3,880.

The final table was fast and furious with what seemed like an all-in every hand.

Brian Kruyd (Parsippany, NJ) found himself stuck between two monster stacks 3-handed and finally fell in third place for $7,351.

Heads up took close to an hour as both players were very familiar with each other. Unbelievably, they had been playing since the tournament began.

Glenn Cole won four races in a row against Dan early on at the FT but lost the one monster hand when everything was on the line. Cole's QQ was cracked by Dan's 55 after he turned a set of fives.

Cole collected $12,047 for his 2nd place finish.

But once again the winner of the last main event of the 2011 Borgata Poker Open is Dan Dizenzo who made three final tables during this series and ends on the best note possible - 1st Place.

Congratulations on your $20,875 victory today you played outstanding poker and deserve it.

Dan Dizenzo (Vernon, NJ) takes down the last main event of the 2011 Borgata Poker Open. This is Dan's third final table of the open. Tonight he wins the Borgata trophy, the blue shark optics sunglasses, and $20,875.

The key hand for Dan's tournament was when 9th place finisher Leanne Rosenblatt flopped a king with A-K then Dan hit the case six on the river for a set of sixes and a huge double-up.

At the final table his 5-5 cracked Q-Q after turning a five and completely crippling his heads up challenger.

A couple hands later it was over.

After 9th in Event 2, and 8th in the $100,000 guarantee, Dan strikes gold and captures a first place title along with a huge payday of $20,875 to add to his Borgata bankroll.

Glenn Cole (Centreville, MD) started the day at the same table (T-4) as Dan Dizenzo. Seemed only fitting these two big stack grinders would end up going against each other heads up.

Both players were evenly stacked heads-up and played for 30 minutes without too much drama.

Finally a monster hand presented itself but Cole was on the losing end.

Glenn raised with pocket queens and Dan jammed with pocket fives. Glenn called and said he had a bad feeling after seeing the fives.

Sure enough a five on the turn proved disastrous for Glenn.

Board: 7-2-4-5-A.

After a count, Glenn realized he was still in the tournament but barely. He was left with two big blinds and was all in every hand.

The final hand that ended his day was his K-10 vs. Dan's K-J. Board ran clean and the J kicker played.

The construction worker build some great stacks all day but in the end couldn't survive his queens getting cracked. He would have played many more events but was summoned to jury duty all week. Today he was able to play poker and the verdict came in at $12,047.